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Mar. 16, 2010

iPhone apps that allow wireless users to donate money to charities, recent earthquake victims in Haiti and Chile or to participate in political polls are transforming things in a very positive way for politicians who are savvy in social media and Internet forums.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore, who is considering signing up for a smartphone application, says "there's a whole new generation of people out there that need to be reached, and you're only going to do it by adapting and recognizing the habits in which they consume information."

And he's not alone. Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak say he has become the first Canadian politician to launch an iPhone application. The free download can transmit policy positions, videos, photos, news, information on coming events in a specific location or city, etc.

And oh yes, let's not forget this: it can also ask you to make a donation to his party...

While Hudak organizers haven't used the fundraising or survey capabilities of the application yet, they say these tools were a factor in setting up the program in the first place. And they are understandably getting more and more enthusiastic about all of this.

Brett Bell, Director of Social Media for the Provincial Ontario PC party says "as we saw with Haiti, Chile and other earthquake help relief organizations, mobile fundraising is a really great tool that we definitely are looking to capitalize on."

That kind of program is likely to become an increasingly important tool for politicians targeting the younger demographic, according to one federal cabinet minister.

The creator of Hudak's smartphone app says it's among the top one-hundred social networking application downloads on iTunes in Canada.

"Any politician who misses that is literally missing the whole mechanism by which people are collecting their data in the first place. The Internet is great, but now we can take this to the next level. And mobile apps are it," added Bell.

In the U.S., President Obama was the first to use smartphones to raise significant amounts of money during his successful campaign for the presidency. Millions of dollars were raised at Barack Obama rallies by asking those in the audience to hold up their cell phones and make donations of as little as $5 or less.

The application used by Hudak was designed by Purple Forge, which has sold the technology to politicians in Britain and the U.S. The company say they've received interest from other Canadian politicians as well, but they didn't confirm the details of other programs in the works as of yet.

Bell said that launching the Hudak application is the party's goal to capitalize on social media tools leading up to the next election campaign, at least in part, anyway.

For mobile users that are really engaged digitally, this is going to be the next logical step," said Mark Blevis, a consultant with the public affairs firm Fleishman-Hillard who has studied the use of social media by Canadian politicians for the past year. Now he's also turning his head to the south to see what American politicians are doing.

"Mobile is really the way that people are getting a lot of their information and spending their time online. So we thought it was very important for us to actually have a presence there and for people to be able to get to know the Hudak application and get to know the party and what we stand for in that medium."

Labour minister Lisa Raitt drew attention to her live tweeting of question period, which included comments on the color of clothing worn by fellow MPs. Conservative MP Royal Galipeau scrambled aboard the fashion commentary bandwagon during last Friday's session of the House by issuing updates on the colour of MPs' ties.

Blevis added that politicians will have to capitalize on tools like the smart phone application to reach the younger generation.

The use of new media was in the political spotlight during the past week after Prime Minister Stephen Harper streamed his response to the throne speech on YouTube and allowed Canadians to post questions from the site.

However, Carleton University communications professor Mary Francoli is a bit skeptical of whether new media is being used effectively by politicians. She said that while more and more MPs are using sites like Twitter and Facebook, the majority are still using them as a way to broadcast information rather than a forum for interaction with Canadians citizens and taxpayers.

"In order to reach them and get them strongly engaged in politics, that's going to have to shift into the digital space more and more," she said.

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Source: Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.